I know for certain I can't write the plot until after the theme, because the plot has to fit the theme. And depending on the characters and what they're like, they might change the initial direction of the plot slightly.

Theme affects the kind of plot, characters affect the movement of that plot.

Writing is a pretty organic process for me, it has all but method in the early stages. Once I'm at a point where I know the who, what and why or at least two out of these, I continue to build them and fill the holes in other areas.

Inspiration can come from basically any place. From attaching a backstory to a book in my current comic to studying for an economics exam (no joke, I got ideas from that... made studying harder, cause I wanted to work on those ideas instead).

There's not really a method wherein I can say characters, plot or theme first. And like Darwin said, it's not the same process for every story but differs each time.

I start with whatever idea popped into my head and inspired me to write. Try to connect to other bits and bobs floating around in my idea bank.

Then, as the barebones of a plot start to take shape, I'll attach character concepts for ease of us. By now the themes are probably established.

From there I flesh out the characters and plot simultaneously. I don't have a great approach for putting a plotline together though, and I wish I was better at it. I just generate scenes as they come to me, and work on the most interesting ones first. Then I try to connect them.

Connecting the plot points like a constellation is the hardest part. Sometimes the overarching plot gets muddled or lost and it makes reaching the ending a daunting task. I need to get better at cutting out scenes and characters, even when I really like them, if they just don't fit in.

My method is similar to feardeer's. I've been working on Northwind for a decade, and it has grown and changed so much since its initial conception. Lemmo and I basically said "Let's do a comic together!" and we both like angels so we did some research about them and picked two names. Tiel was mine and Iax was his. Then I designed the characters (Iax to Lem's specs) and we decided that they would be banished to earth for being dumb and went from there.

Lem originally wrote the scripts and I did the art but I took over writing after I think comic 5. He had some ideas for the plot but he didn't share all of them (I still have no idea what a sit burger is, he won't tell me) so I had to wing it (get it, angels...). Right now I have a vague outline of plot points for most of the story and I flesh it out as I go. Actual scripts are written up to page 405 right now, and the rest is bits of dialogue and descriptions. Whenever I get stuck with art I read through again and flesh it out more or tweak parts that don't quite work anymore. I know pretty much how it's going to end, but exactly how I get there is ehhhhh...

Wow, themes are important for a lot of people . I don't really think of those, uh, at all to be honest. Well. At least, not right away. I start with an idea of what I want to do. Like, I want to make a pirate comic. Then I come up with characters, some moments and where I'd like things to end up, and start developing things from there. Things jump into my head pretty quickly to begin with, and then settle down until I'm slowly working on stuff over a long period of time.